The day that changed my life: Robson Green

The Soldier Soldier star, 47, on telling his miner father he wanted to
leave his job as an apprentice in a shipyard to become a professional
actor

The day that changed my life was the day I told my dad I wanted to be a professional actor. By the time I was 21, I’d spent three years as an apprentice draughtsman at Swan Hunter shipyard on Tyneside and all my spare time at drama clubs.

Having to tell my dad, who was a miner, I wanted to be a professional actor was hard. I loved him but I’d always been scared to tell him how I felt. You want your parents to be proud of what you do, but he knew acting was an insecure profession and the conversation didn’t go well.

When I told him, he said, ‘What do
you mean you want to be an actor? Do you know what you’re doing? You’re
being paid a fortune at the yard, do you know how hard it is to get a
job?’

Then there was a lot of swearing.

I could understand his thinking. He was a big guy with hands like shovels, working in the most dangerous occupation in the world. Then I tell him I want to put on make-up and ponce about in front of a camera. He didn’t like it one bit.

Nor did my brother, who was a scaffolder, or my two sisters. Mum tried to get her head around it but it truly seemed I wanted to go into a world that only I understood.

But I knew the shipyard wasn’t right for me. I had this need to stand up in front of people. Dad had never been to any of my drama club performances or even a school show. But he did come to my first professional play, which was wonderful. He turned up with his mum and my mum and I was very nervous, knowing they were in the audience.

Telling his miner father he wanted to leave his job as an apprentice in a shipyard to become a professional actor was the day that changed Robson Green's life

It was the first night I’d seen Mum and Dad together since they’d separated ten years earlier. After that, Dad became my toughest critic. He’d see something on television and ring me up and say, ‘I hope you weren’t paid for that.’

'You want your parents to be proud of
what you do, but he knew acting was an insecure profession and the
conversation didn’t go well'

Dad had left home when I was 11. There’d been arguments between him and Mum and I kind of saw it coming. When they separated, I didn’t take sides. Dad moved to a house just a couple of streets away, so I knew where he was and I kept up a relationship with him. Me, more so than my siblings. I just wanted to knock about with him. He was called Robson as well and he was a very funny man, larger than life.

It was only after he died, three years ago, that I found out my dad had also enjoyed performing too. As a young man, he spent his spare time ballroom dancing with his sister, my auntie Brenda, and they became competition champions. He was 18st but so light on his feet. I had no idea, and of course he never said.

Whatever I do, I wonder what my dad would have thought of it. He always had an opinion. My abiding memory of him is this big man who grafted hard, walking to work as the sun was setting. He may have left our house but he never left me. I still miss him.